Drought, the online bag for fodder is born (cross-border guide)

Context

In a nutshell

• Drought puts a strain on the agricultural sector in Switzerland.
• The farmers' associations of Zurich and Schaffhausen launch an online bag for fodder.
• The goal is to connect those who need feed and those who can offer it.

Key facts

• The drought has also affected important traditional markets such as Spain, France and Germany.
• The availability of fodder is limited almost everywhere.
• The increase in bovine slaughterings in June and July is 15.3% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Drought continues to strain the agricultural sector in Switzerland. Meadows and fields are dry in many regions and many farmers are already forced to resort to winter forage reserves to feed livestock. The situation is particularly critical in the Central Plateau and the Jura, where rainfall in May and June was 40-60% lower than the thirty-year average, according to data from the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology.

Faced with this emergency, the farmers' associations of Zurich and Schaffhausen have launched a digital platform for the exchange of fodder. The system works like an online marketplace: farmers post ads for the sale or disposal of hay, silage and straw, indicating quantity, quality and price. Buyers can filter by region and product type, reducing costs

Operational details

The drought that has hit eastern Switzerland in recent weeks has brought many farmers to their knees, forcing them to deal with dry pastures and hay stocks at historic lows. To respond to the emergency, the farmers' associations of Zurich and Schaffhausen have launched a dedicated digital platform: an online forage bag, designed to put in direct contact those who need feed and those who can offer it. The objective is concrete and operational: to reduce procurement times in a critical phase.

The platform, already active since Monday, registered over 40 ads in the first 48 hours, with offers ranging from 5 to 120 bales of hay, mainly from farms in the cantons of Thurgau and Aargau, where rainfall at the end of June guaranteed a second more abundant cut. Goat and cattle farmers in the Klettgau region, which is particularly affected, can thus check availability and prices in real time, which currently range between 18 and 25 francs per round bale, with an increase of 15% compared to the seasonal average.

To facilitate operations, the bag includes an operational checklist: verification of forage moisture (maximum 15%), control of phytosanitary certificates for transport beyond the cantonal border and written agreement at the point of delivery, with the possibility of temporary storage at the agricultural centres of Zurich and Winterthur. In parallel, the Federal Office for Agriculture

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Key points

The drought that has hit eastern Switzerland in recent weeks has brought many farmers to their knees, forced to deal with a fodder production reduced by up to 30% compared to the seasonal average. In this scenario, the farmers' associations of Zurich and Schaffhausen have launched an online platform to connect feed supply and demand. The initiative, operational since the beginning of August, works like a real exchange: those who have surplus fodder publish an ad with quantity, quality and price, while those who need it can consult the listings and contact the seller directly. In the first two weeks of operation, the platform has already registered over 150 listings, with an estimated volume of 2,000 tonnes of hay and silage traded, predominantly between the districts of Winterthur and Klettgau.

The objective is twofold: to prevent animals from being sold prematurely due to lack of food and to ensure the continuity of production on farms, many of which are located in hilly areas where pastures have dried up as early as mid-July. To facilitate transactions, the platform includes an operational checklist for sellers: indicate the type of fodder (first cut hay, second cut, alfalfa), the degree of humidity, the date of collection and the place of collection. Buyers, on the other hand, can filter by a radius of 50 kilometers to reduce transport costs,

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Source: rsi.ch